Am Faclair Beag has a map feature which will show you (as far as we
can tell but more on that later) where the word is used (just click
on the blue underlined word in an entry). Like this one for bainne:

With a word like bainne you
can be fairly certain that any Gaelic speaker will recognise it but
that's not the case for all Gaelic words. For example, you might do
a search for "pert" and find that there's several options. You're
then, traditionally, left guessing as to which of them are regional,
over-regional or well and truly dead. This is where these maps will
come in handy. They give you some rough indication of who of our
voters know a word or at least recognise a word. Neat, eh? Well, we
think so anyway. It's like a traditional dialect map on steroids!

1. What this isn't
Now before we go any further, please note that the data you see on
our maps is indicative only.
What that means is that we can't guarantee that they give you the
full picture like a (paid for) traditional dialect survey might give
you where you have researchers going out with a set list of words to
elicit from people. On the other hand, while our approach is shaky
if there aren't many votes, it will continue to get better as more
votes are collected, something you don't get in a traditional
survey. So if you look up a word, find a single pin on Benbecula and
then use it in your essay, we can't guarantee that all Benbecula
people know it.

This also means that you shouldn't base a scientific paper on it. On
the other hand, it might give you some ideas about what you could go
and research further if this kind of thing fascinates you.

So, does this pin below mean that this is a rare word from the west
side of Mull, left behind by St Columba?

No, in a word. It just means that we happen to have collected a vote
from someone in that area who uses the word. The word may indeed be
common across Scotland but only has a single vote just now. On the
other hand, you can tell
from this that there's a fair chance that at least Mull people will
recognise this word (if it's a rare word). Sometimes you will have
to look at more than one map to get an idea.

On the other hand, comparing these three for dha-rìreabh, a-rìreabh
and da-rìreabh tells you that most likely, you're dealing with
regional variation where a-rìreabh
is a Northern Mainland feature, da-rìreabh
South-Western and dha-rìreabh
common elsewhere:

dha-rìreabh

da-rìreabh

a-rìreabh

2. The Colour Scheme
We use two different colours and two different shades to indicate native speakers (purple) vs fluent learners (orange) and active (darker shade) vs passive knowledge of a word or
expression. Active means that someone will actually use the word,
passive means they recognise it but don't normally use it. If you
move the mouse over a pin on a map you will also get this info in a
tooltip popup. Here's a table showing the pins and what they mean:

Native
Speaker, active use

Native
Speaker, passive knowledge

Fluent
Learner, active use

Fluent
Learner, passive knowledge

At the moment, we're not showing votes which indicate that people
voted negatively, i.e. that they do not even recognize a word
passively.

3. O CanadaFor the most part, the votes are from Scotland but
occasionally it pays to zoom out because by and by, we're also
trying to get some Canadian votes on the map.

4. Balancing Speakers
We're trying very hard to make sure that native speaker votes
outnumber leaners. Try a common word like bainne or mac
and you'll get a rough idea of the balance we've got at the
moment. Of course, some folk vote more than others.

A native speaker pin means just that, a native speaker. We try to
make sure that if a speaker has a dialect affiliation that the pin
is near to that place (for example, a Uist speaker may live in
Aberdeen but their pin will be in Uist) but it does not guarantee
that it's always a "local" dialect. For instance, we have a fair
number of voters who speak mixed dialects, for example people who
have two Gaelic speaking parents, say one from Lewis and the other
from Skye. In such cases, the pin is roughly where they live.

5. Why is there a pin in the loch?
The locations are only indicative. We do this to avoid giving folk
the idea that a pin, if it happened to be over a building, that a
particular voter lives in that particular building. So we usually
stick the pin in some place away from houses, like a river or loch
in a settlement.

6. Can I vote?
If you're a native speaker or fluent learner, sure. It's really easy
and quick, you can do it while using the dictionary normally - and
the effects are instantaneous, the pin will appear immediately (you
may have to refresh the page of course). Just get in touch with
Michael on fios (at) akerbeltz
(dot) org. Michael will have a quick chat with you on the
phone, get you set up and explain how you vote. There's no big,
searching questionnaire, all we need is a general location for where
your dialect is from (if you're a native speaker) or where you live
(again, just very generally). Siuthadaibh,
bithibh ann no bithibh fann!